Todd Stroger Is Making It Happen

By Kevin Robinson in News on Jan 11, 2007 2:50PM

Todd Stroger and his band of Merry Makers made a lot of promises during the last campaign, and now they are trying to carry through with at least some of them. Early last week Gerald Nichols had his publicly funded paid vacation (19 weeks of paid leave) end, when he was officially removed from the county payroll. But just because some of the highest-paid officials in the county have resigned, don't think that Stroger is passing the savings on to you. Even though he's made all that hullabaloo about slashing the county budget, he's still doing things the old-fashioned way: hiring his friends as well as his in-laws.

Meanwhile, while the county's elected officials scramble to cut their budget by 17% (including, in some cases, asking people to take as many as 10 unpaid days off each year), people that use county services are being asked to pitch into the effort — if indirectly. He's also released his plan to reform the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, although he publicly announced that he is demanding the resignation of all exempt employees there (one of his key campaign promises). No word yet on the savings (if any) this will generate, but it's hard to imagine how improving mental health services, repairing aging infrastructure, and deeper oversight will be cheaper.

Considering that most of the sacrifice appears to come from regular front-line service providers and at the expense of the very people that use county services, we have to wonder if Stroger and his cronies are sticking it to the people that carried them into power in the first place.